Fox News Being Banned From Cable Packages?
An LGBTQ rights organization in Canada is petitioning to ban Fox News, claiming misinformation on the network is endangering trans people.
In early April, an LGBTQ rights organization in Canada began the process of petitioning the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) to ban Fox News on the basis of inflammatory misinformation spread by then-host Tucker Carlson about transgender people. The organization, known as Egal, cited specific commentary from the incendiary TV personality as dangerous and potentially inciting of violence toward the already threatened transgender community. Like sexual minorities such as gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, trans people are especially vulnerable to violence, sexual assault, and hate crimes, in no small part because of media spreading falsehoods and supporting legislation that harms their community.
Fox News is being exposed with increasing clarity as a regular source of false and misleading reports that help fuel such animosity, with a recent settlement granted to Dominion Voting Systems of $787 million in its defamation lawsuit against the network. As Canada’s National Post reports, the Egal petition was started before that landmark case concluded and before Fox’s subsequent firing of Carlson. The inciting incident for the motion from Egal was a March broadcast of Tucker Carlson Tonight.
A public letter Egal posted stated that Fox News was deliberately attempting to “provoke hatred and violence” with the broadcast and that the host’s false claims depicted transgender people as “violent and dangerous.” The claims made on the program included the idea that transgender people are “targeting” Christians, placing them in “existential opposition” to Christianity. Carlson also claimed that transgender people are given special status that provides them advantages when seeking employment, a claim with which transgender people who have repeatedly encountered workplace harassment and barriers to employment might want to take issue.
If the CRTC does decide to remove Fox News or at least make it optional, it will not be the first time it has done something of that nature. For instance, according to National Post, the broadcast regulatory organization removed another network just last year, deleting Russia Today and RT France after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that March. The public in Canada is invited to comment on the complaint through June 2.
Of course, it is entirely possible that Fox News will be able to skirt this effort, given that it has already axed Carlson. However, Variety reports that Carlson’s programs are still viewable on its streaming service, Fox Nation. How long that will be the case still remains to be seen, though the network seems eager to distance itself from the hotly divisive personality.
Such a turnaround at Fox News could be for any number of reasons, as no specific justification was given for the firing, which was characterized at the time as a decision to part ways. As Egal’s public consultation on its complaint to CRTC moves forward, it will be interesting to see if the Canadian broadcast bureau decides to pull the plug as well.
